For me, the Internet of Things is a very clear concept, with far stretching and huge impact on our lives. At FacilityApps, we digitize the work process. Digitizing the physical world through use of IoT is a natural input to the work process for us.

Internet of Things in Facility Management and Cleaning Services

Speaking to facility managers and management of logistics and production companies, I have come to realise there is a knowledge gap about the internet of things. The future is already here, but it's uneven distributed, as William Gibson said.

A good way to think about the internet of things is to break it down into 4 levels:

1. Hardware

Internet of things hardware are sensors attached to physical objects, that generate information that they can pass to the internet. Sensors could measure temperature, humidity, the level in a container, air quality or whatever.

2. Connectivity

To send information to the internet, the hardware needs to be connected. This connection ideally is done wireless and with low energy usage, so the hardware can operate for a long time on a single battery.

3. Analytics

Gathering a lot of data has no use in itself. The value is that we can analyse it: to try and distill correlations or rules. Once we can do this, we can start predicting outcomes and optimise accordingly.

4. Action

When we have started measuring, have gathered the information and have analysed it, we've prepared to predict and optimise our work. But who is going to action on the newfound insight? This last step is critical in true, functional Internet of things.

Want to start experience Internet of Things?

My advice would be to never start an IoT pilot without first thinking about the actioning platform or routine. Measurable action is key. Do not fall for 'build it, and they will come', but rather for 'measure it, and make sure it gets done'.

Sensors in bins

As a practical example take our Binster©. The Binster© is a sensor that measures the filling rate of a waste bin. It is small, wireless, has 5 years battery life and is very affordable. Over a LoRa network, it sends measurements to our cloud platform. From here we make the information available in a customised webpage. The route can be assigned to a specific employee, who's task can be marked completed in the same app. Point to point, the whole process: measurable, documented, optimised and executed. Nice.